Sanitation - NY

August 6, 2014 7:31 PM - cbslocal.com - CBS Radio Inc.

ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to use clean water funds on the new Tappan Zee Bridge was approved Wednesday by a key state board despite objections from environmental groups that said the money should support drinking water and sewer treatment projects. 

The $256 million loan from the clean water fund would help pay for the $3.9 billion span being built north of New York City. Cuomo’s administration argues the novel use of the funds would help minimize the cost of tolls on the new bridge and pay for work associated with the construction that would protect the Hudson River Valley.

 http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/08/06/gov-cuomos-plan-to-use-clean-water-funds-for-tappan-zee-bridge-okd/

nytimes.com - June 16, 2013 - Mireya Navarro

Maxie Santiago prepared to empty his food scraps into a collection bin on the sixth floor of his 600-unit building in Manhattan.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ... is taking on a new cause: requiring New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting.

Dozens of smaller cities, including San Francisco and Seattle, have adopted rules that mandate recycling of food waste from homes, but sanitation officials in New York had long considered the city too dense and vertically structured for such a policy to succeed.

Recent pilot programs in the city, though, have shown an unexpectedly high level of participation, officials said. As a result, the Bloomberg administration is rolling out an ambitious plan to begin collecting food scraps across the city, according to Caswell F. Holloway IV, a deputy mayor.

The administration plans to announce shortly that it is hiring a composting plant to handle 100,000 tons of food scraps a year. That amount would represent about 10 percent of the city’s residential food waste.

A view of Breezy Point, Queens, from November. Hurricane Sandy brought sewage-filled floodwaters to the neighborhood.  Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Michael Schwirtz - April 30, 2013

Over 10 billion gallons of raw and partly treated sewage gushed into waterways and bubbled up onto streets and into homes as a result of Hurricane Sandy — enough to cover Central Park in a 41-foot-high pile of sludge, a nonprofit research group said in a report released on Tuesday.

The group, Climate Central, said about 94 percent of the sewage flowed into rivers, canals and bays in New York and New Jersey, the states hit hardest by the storm that came ashore six months ago. In New York City alone, 1.6 billion gallons spilled into area waterways.

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Image: What a waste: More than three billion gallons of untreated or partially treated wastewater have poured into the New York Harbor since October 29

submitted by Albert Gomez

gwob.org - November 23rd, 2012

What a mess.

Billions of gallons of human waste have poured into New York Harbor since Hurricane Sandy hit the region, NBC reports.

The waste is coming from the fifth largest sewage treatment plant in the nation, based in Newark, New Jersey.

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